Jackie Northam

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Jackie Northam is NPR's International Affairs Correspondent. She is a veteran journalist who has spent three decades reporting on conflict, politics, and life across the globe - from the mountains of Afghanistan and the desert sands of Saudi Arabia, to the gritty prison camp at Guantanamo Bay and the pristine beauty of the Arctic.

Northam spent more than a dozen years as an international correspondent living in London, Budapest, Bangkok, Phnom Penh, and Nairobi. She charted the collapse of communism, covered the first Gulf War from Saudi Arabia, counter-terrorism efforts in Pakistan, and reported from Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein.

Her work has taken her to conflict zones around the world. Northam covered the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, arriving in the country just four days after Hutu extremists began slaughtering ethnic Tutsis. In Afghanistan, she accompanied Green Berets on a precarious mission to take a Taliban base. In Cambodia, she reported from Khmer Rouge strongholds.

Throughout her career, Northam has put a human face on her reporting, whether it be the courage of villagers walking miles to cast their vote in an Afghan election despite death threats from militants, or the face of a rescue worker as he desperately listens for any sound of life beneath the rubble of a collapsed elementary school in Haiti.

Northam joined NPR in 2000 as National Security Correspondent, covering US defense and intelligence policies. She led the network's coverage of the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal and the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Her present beat focuses on the complex relationship between international business and geopolitics, including how the lifting of nuclear sanctions has opened Iran for business, the impact of China's efforts to buy up businesses and real estate around the world, and whether President Trump's overseas business interests are affecting US policy.

Northam has received multiple journalism awards during her career, including Associated Press awards and regional Edward R. Murrow awards, and was part of an NPR team of journalists who won an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award for "The DNA Files," a series about the science of genetics.

A native of Canada, Northam spends her time off crewing in the summer, on the ski hills in the winter, and on long walks year-round with her beloved beagle, Tara.

President Trump's former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, collected more than $50,000 from Russian companies, including a Kremlin-backed television network, according to documents released in a congressional inquiry.

In early January, Eric Trump took a trip to Uruguay to check progress on an unfinished Trump tower. About a month later, he was in the Dominican Republic, seeing whether an earlier resort project could be revived. He joined his brother, Donald Jr., a couple of weeks later at a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a Trump-branded golf course in Dubai. Then the two popped up earlier last week in Vancouver, Canada, for the opening of a new Trump hotel.

For more than a decade, Kuwait's ambassador to the U.S., Salem al-Sabah, has held a gala event every Feb. 25 to celebrate his country's national day. The annual holiday commemorates the tiny Gulf state's independence from British rule in 1961. Traditionally, the event has been held at the Four Seasons Hotel, in the heart of Washington, D.C.

But Sabah says he feels his guests have wanted a change. Last year, he held the celebration at the Newseum. For this year, he and his wife, Rima, looked into the newly opened Trump International Hotel as another possibility.

Although President Trump has stepped back from daily management of the Trump Organization, his businesses continue to expand, often in foreign countries.

On Saturday, Trump's sons Eric and Donald Jr. will be in the United Arab Emirates, helping cut the ribbon for the new Trump International Golf Club, according to Kim Benza, a spokesperson for the Trump Organization.

President Trump has gotten off to a rocky start with one NAFTA partner — Mexico. On Monday, he turns to the other partner, Canada, when he hosts Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at the White House.

Hundreds of billions of dollars of trade pass between Canada and the U.S. each year, $540 billion in 2015 alone. Yet Trump has called NAFTA the worst trade deal ever and is threatening to rip up or at least renegotiate it.

The official address of Toronto's Trump International Hotel and Tower is 325 Bay St., in the middle of the city's financial district. Think of it as Canada's answer to Wall Street. But the hotel's entrance is actually around the corner. So instead of seeing a grand facade bearing the Trump name, what you see from the prestigious Bay Street side is a loading dock.

On Friday, when Donald Trump puts his hand on a Bible and takes the oath of office, ethics experts say he may very well be in violation of a lease on one of his premier hotels.

The Trump International Hotel is a grand dame of a building on Pennsylvania Avenue, just a stone's throw from the White House. It has become something of a tourist destination in Washington — and a rallying point for protesters — since Trump won the election. This week, they snarled traffic in front of the hotel, and one demonstrator suffered serious burns after trying to set a fire outside the building.

President-elect Trump told a press conference Wednesday that he would step back from running his company to prevent possible conflicts of interest once he's in office. To help prove it, he said he had just rejected a $2 billion deal to develop a golf course in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, adding that he wasn't required to do so because he isn't bound by any conflict-of-interest laws once he's president.

In late October, just weeks ahead of the election, President-elect Donald Trump made a quick detour to Washington for the official opening of his new five-star hotel, just a few blocks from the White House.

President-elect Donald Trump has promised to step back from his business interests when he takes office. He says he'll let his two adult sons take the helm and that he won't make any new deals while he's president.

While he's unwinding some of his roughly 500 business deals involving about 20 countries as Inauguration Day approaches, many others are moving forward, causing concern about conflicts of interest.

President-elect Donald Trump said Tuesday that he intends to nominate Robert Lighthizer as his U.S. trade representative, potentially signaling a major overhaul of U.S. trade policy once Trump takes office.

Lighthizer has long advocated a tougher stand on trade with China, which is in line with Trump's campaign rhetoric.

It can take decades for a country build up a name as a good place to do business, and the U.S. consistently ranks among the best. But some economists say its reputation for trustworthiness could be challenged if President-elect Trump makes good on threats to rip up international agreements.

Royal Dutch Shell has signed a provisional agreement to develop oil and gas fields in Iran, a move that could signal energy companies will not be deterred from doing business with the Islamic Republic despite uncertainty whether a Trump administration will scrap a nuclear deal agreed to by world powers.

The Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., is a stately old building with turrets, arches and a clock tower soaring 300 feet into the air. Inside, the lobby is equally impressive with massive chandeliers, a grand staircase and a glass ceiling 10 floors up.

The 263-room hotel is without doubt luxurious. But it could also represent a massive conflict of interest for President-elect Donald Trump once he takes office.

After Donald Trump is sworn in as president on Jan. 20, he will follow a time-honored tradition and make his way from the U.S. Capitol down Pennsylvania Avenue.

Along the way, just a few blocks before he reaches the White House, he'll pass the Trump International Hotel. The 263-room luxury hotel is becoming the focus of a debate over conflict of interest between Trump and his business dealings.

One of China's wealthiest men has been on a buying spree in Hollywood, snapping up cinemas and movie production companies. Now Wang Jianlin, the chairman of the Beijing-based Dalian Wanda Group has acquired another piece of Americana: Dick Clark Productions.

The Belgian government says it has broken a deadlock over a major trade agreement between the European Union and Canada, known as the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement. The deal had been held up in the final days by Wallonia, a tiny French-speaking enclave in the small country of Belgium.

Thursday is supposed to be signing day in Brussels for a major free trade agreement between Canada and the European Union, an agreement seven years in the making, which involves 29 countries with a combined population of more than 500 million.

The media was lined up. Special pens were set aside. VIPs were making travel plans, including Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and many European leaders.

When foreign leaders loot their homelands, they sometimes like to stash their valuables in the U.S. Yachts, mansions and artwork have all been purchased in America with laundered money, according the the U.S. Justice Department.

It happens often enough that the department has set up a special unit dedicated to tracking down international kleptocrats.

The U.S. and the Philippines are long-standing allies, but you would never know it from the way President Rodrigo Duterte is talking these days.

Since his election in June, Duterte has been unleashing anti-American rhetoric, which has included demands that the U.S. withdraw special operations forces helping to fight Islamists in the southern Philippines. He has also threatened to cancel joint naval patrols and warns this will be the last year the two countries will hold joint military exercises, saying they haven't benefited the Philippines.

Saudi Arabia is such an influential player in the oil industry that any action it takes — or is rumored to take — can sway global markets. So it's not surprising there's a lot of speculation about whether its massive state oil company, Saudi Aramco, is trying to buy a refinery in Texas.

Just over a month ago, the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague issued two important rulings. One soundly rejected Beijing's extensive claim of sovereignty in the South China Sea. The other focused on whether China had caused environmental damage as it constructed artificial islands in the region to help prop up its claim.

Justin Trudeau has had a number of careers: schoolteacher, snowboard instructor, and since last year, prime minister of Canada. Now he's an action hero. A new issue of Civil War II from Marvel Comics, being released Aug. 31, has Trudeau facing evil-doers in the halls of Canada's Parliament — and in the boxing ring.

The front cover shows Trudeau sitting in the corner of a boxing ring, elbows resting on the ropes. He's wearing boxing shorts, a tank top emblazoned with a large maple leaf and a smile that's a bit difficult to read.